MENTAL OPERATIONS IN RELATION TO TIME. 99 



one grand line of his poem. We are now regarding 

 simply that faculty through which the mind acts upon 

 matter without, and especially upon that body with which 

 it individually co-exists a co-existence so mysterious 

 that language applied to it is but a shelter to our igno- 

 rance. Neither into this problem need we enter here. 

 What bears more upon our subject is the fact, well 

 attested by experience, that actions produced at first by 

 express volition gradually assume from repetition much 

 of the character and force of instincts. The will initi- 

 ates some act of change. The subordinate acts fulfilling 

 the intent become in the end so automatic that con- 

 sciousness is lost in their rapid and unerring sequences. 

 We will to walk, to talk, to read, to write. In the 

 child each particular part of these acts requires a spe- 

 cial direction of mind, an effort of will. As life goes on, 

 and they become habitual from repetition, the mind 

 may be said to relegate a part of its power to the bodily 

 organs. It puts them into action, stops or controls 

 them, but has no separate consciousness of these 

 multitudinous motions, rapid almost to continuity, me- 

 thodised automatically, and synchronous for different 



organs. 



These automatic acts, in their various relations to 

 the intellect, will, and passions of man, as well as in 

 their relations to the instincts of other and lower ani- 

 mals, form a part of the great network of life, which 

 neither philosophy nor science have yet unravelled. 

 It is on these acts, as associated with volition, that 

 I believe mainly to depend the theory of a possible 



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